Forecasting the status of the environment using SMIC and MORPHOL models in south Khorasan province

South Khorasan Province has gone through rapid industrialization and urbanization processes in the last decades and is under increasing pressure from various environmental challenges such as water scarcity and intensification of pollution and ecosystem degradation. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop scenarios for the future state of the environment of South Khorasan province using LIPSOR, the French school of scenario building, and by the application of simple interaction matrix models and morphological analysis to systematically help the environmental management orientations. For this purpose, key variables were first introduced as the main drivers or actors shaping the future. SMIC PROB-EXPERT software package was used to explain the initial scenarios of the future environmental situation of the province. Then a set of scenarios including the most probable scenarios were identified using MORPHOL software. Also, due to a large number of scenarios, the framework of general scenarios was used to describe different axes and conditions. The results of the study of the five main drivers in the SMIC model led to the extraction of 10 initial scenarios. Then, morphological analysis with the MORPHOL model with three political, institutional-executive, and cultural domains produced 3125 possible and probable scenarios, each of which shows the probability of D5/D6/D1/D33/D29 propulsion, respectively. Finally, the analysis of 50 possible scenarios showed that scenario 11111 is the most probable scenario (276.41%), and scenarios 11112, 11113, and 21111 are with probabilities of 184.28, 122.85, and 115.17, respectively, which are five of its constituent variables mainly indicating the probability of occurrence of low (1) to moderate (2 and 3) in the scenarios. In general, the future environmental situation of South Khorasan province is in the situation of the third quarter called lack of discretion in the environment. To change the future and move towards a better future, paying attention to each of the influential variables will be the way forward and can be directed towards a quarter of the framework with at least one flourishing axis.